Yeah, I wanna talk about the aether.

[too-open-minded]

I'm confused, so the light creates its own field?

[StringJunky]

From my link:

 

James Clerk Maxwell (lived 1831--1879) put these ideas together and proposed that if a changing magnetic field can make an electric field, then a changing electric field (from an oscillating electric charge, for example) should make a magnetic field. A consequence of this is that changing electric and magnetic fields should trigger each other and these changing fields should move at a speed equal to the speed of light. To conclude this line of reasoning, Maxwell said that light is an electromagnetic wave. Later experiments confirmed Maxwells's theory.

 

It is the product of two types of field generating each other. No aether needed.

Edited December 19, 2012 by StringJunky

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

From my link:

 

James Clerk Maxwell (lived 1831--1879) put these ideas together and proposed that if a changing magnetic field can make an electric field, then a changing electric field (from an oscillating electric charge, for example) should make a magnetic field. A consequence of this is that changing electric and magnetic fields should trigger each other and these changing fields should move at a speed equal to the speed of light. To conclude this line of reasoning, Maxwell said that light is an electromagnetic wave. Later experiments confirmed Maxwells's theory.

 

It is the product of two types of field generating each other. No aether needed.

 

 

What does the Nobel Prize winning Frank Wilczec mean in his book " The lightness of being " when he speaks of a GRID pervading all space. Filled with 'Stuff' , quantum virtual particles coming into and out of existence very quickly . Yet making the universe and space full of a GRID type medium of some sort. Does this not hint at an Aether even though Maxwells equations do not necessarily require a medium.